Review: Diplomacy

One of the books I got for Christmas is "Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger. I remember having read it about ten years ago, and it left a big impression on me. In fact, it's probably done more to shape my view of the world than any other book (well, secular book, at least).

It’s also interesting because Kissinger wrote it in 1994, during the “New World Order” era. Reading it today, in the post-9/11 world, I can see much more clearly how America’s perceptions of the world have changed. (And I'm sure it's not the only perception in the world that's changed in the past five years.)

The book starts with an analysis of world affairs as of 1994, and then describes two American personifications of foreign policy interventionism: Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Roosevelt was an adherent to the Realpolitik school of thought: strong countries survive and expand their power, while the weak either shrink back or get conquered. According to him, the U.S. needed no other reason for exerting its power than because it could. However, while he left his mark in many places – such as Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, Hawaii, and Panama – his practice of raw power politics never sat well with the American public. His brand of interventionism did not survive him.

On the other hand, Wilson's inspiration continues to inspire us today. He held that the United States had a special mission, and that we must serve as a beacon of liberty for the rest of mankind. He also held that countries had to adhere to the same moral limitations as individuals. For its first hundred years, the U.S. was isolationist, preferreing to be separated from the world. For the past hundred, America's view of the word has been colored by the Wilsonian lens.

He belief (as Kissinger put it) that “the foreign policies of democracies were morally superior because their people were inherently peace loving” was recently repeated in the 2008 State of the Union Address:

“Our foreign policy is based on a clear premise: We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace.” [Source]

Of course, we have also inherited the greatest weakness of this idealism – the gap between professions and reality. “We set up this Nation to make men free, and we did not confine our conception and purpose to America, and now we will make men free. If we did not do that, all the fame of America would be gone, and her power dissipated.” Source, p.242

This gap between what we say and what we do also causes other countries to question our self-appointment as “world police.” If we act when it is both right and in our interests (Gulf War), but refuse when it is right but not in our interests (Rwanda genocide), what is the real difference?

The answer: Our interests. But in this criterion we show that what really motivates us is not “what is right” but “what we get out of it.” This is what makes countries nervous.

Wilson also conveniently ignored certain key aspects of our own history. He thought America’s sheer existence proved the divine favor upon it:

“It was as if, in the Providence of God, a continent had been kept unused and waiting for a peaceful people who loved liberty and the rights of men more than they loved everything else, to come and set up an unselfish commonwealth.” Source, p.212

Somehow, he seems to have forgotten that this continent had been both occupied and used peacefully by its original inhabitants for centuries, only to be removed by the "commonwealth" he refers to – and for reasons that could be described as anything but "unselfish."

Wilson – and, for that matter, Kissinger himself – provides many interesting quotes by which to measure our present society, since it would appear to many that the difference between our professions and our actions have diverged markedly since the New World Order of the mid-1990s.

In my next post, I’ll list some of them.